How to prepare Mix for Professional Mastering

Ok, so you think mixes are finished and seems ready for mastering. There may be a couple of things you can do to make sure that they are fully optimized. In this post you will find out about some of the preparation professionals do to get the best out of the mastering process.

Maximum Peaks at -6 To -3 dBFS

Providing mixes for mastering that peak upto maximum of –3 dBFS (decibels relative to full scale) on loudest section of song is somewhat of a standard practice. To accomplish this, the mixing engineer can create a group of all faders and lower the faders until the highest peak shows on a digital peak meter at –3 dBFS.

Maximum Peaks at -6 or -3 dBFS ?

since we have already discussed in other post what we do in mastering but again, one of the important step in mastering is to give final gain level to audio material so if you want more of a analogue gain coming through some exotic mastering quality compressors and limiters you should look for maximum peak at -6 dBFS since it gives more headroom to mastering engineer for the gain especially true if you mixed your song completely “In The Box” with all digital plugins giving it for masters with -6 dBFS gives enough headroom for analogue chain gain.

Removal of Mixbus(Master Channel) Processing

Some mixing engineers mix with a transparent limiter on the master bus. The master bus (also called the mixbus) is a channel in the DAW through which the entire mix is routed before it is heard or exported to a file. Adding a limiter to the master bus gives a sense of how the mix may respond to mastering. Master bus limiters also can be used to make more accurate reference comparisons between mixes and commercially released masters. The limiter is removed or bypassed before submitting the mix for mastering or somehow an alternate mix is submitted for mastering without the limiter.

Whereas some mastering studios request that all mixbus equalizer/compression processing be removed before mastering, it is not necessarily a good standard practice. The reasoning behind the idea is that novice engineers can harm the potential of their recordings by processing in ways that cannot be undone. However, experienced engineers who mix into a compressor or equalizer as part of their approach are actually tailoring the mix to its sound and would not be served by removing it.

Multiple Mono versus Stereo Interleaved
Multiple mono refers to a stereo recording saved as two recordings, one of the left channel and one of the right channel, each in separate audio files. The term stereo interleaved means that both channels are combined into a single stereo audio file. Opinions vary about which is better. A few engineers are sure there is an audible difference and prefer multiple mono. By far the most popular belief is that there is no difference, and stereo interleaved mixes are preferred.

Selecting Stem Mastering

Stem mastering is mastering performed from submixes called stems. When all the stems are played simultaneously (e.g., drums, guitars, vocals, and bass), they make up the entire mix. The mastering engineer has more control over the mix. Stem mastering is typically used for situations where productions have significant problems that are unable to be addressed in mixing or by conventional mastering. It also can be useful when a project needs cohesiveness that may not be possible due to various project restrictions. Stems may be required for some television/film/broadcast applications and are sometimes specified in recording contracts. Stem mastering requires extra time and a different way of working, and for those reasons, it is more costly. The vast majority of mastering engineers prefer to work from stems only when clients demand it. Very few mastering engineers prefer stems and have developed approaches for working with them.

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